


Moonlight Motel

by hypsoline



Category: American Gods (TV)
Genre: Bodily Fluids, F/M, Unresolved Tension, death and decay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 17:42:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11318421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypsoline/pseuds/hypsoline
Summary: The dead don’t dream.





	Moonlight Motel

**Author's Note:**

> Written after “A prayer for Mad Sweeney”. I do realize not a long time was spent between that episode and Ostara’s party, but I wanted to write a moment between them outside the van, so please forgive this intermission. Cú Chulainn is a legendary hero from pre-christian Irish folklore, also present in other celtic regions. He was prophesized great deeds and battles, but a short life. Thank you for reading.

She pushes the ice cream van and it molds under the strength of her hands like a child’s toy. She is angry, or as close as she can be to become angry. Emotions long covered with mold and worms, only replaced by anxiety and the survival that comes with the primal instincts left in her body.

 

“We got to go.”

Sweeney nods silently and gets on board of the broken van. His ears ringing from the fall but it will soon be over. The engine roars and that’s all she needs at the moment. That and Shadow, so she speeds up.

 

She misses the feeling of being clean, the clean chemical scent of fabreeze, insect repellant surrounding her like a cloud of mist. She carries a can around but it stopped working long ago. She can’t stop the flies.

Sweeney is off to the side humming some song. Mr. Sandman’s lyrics drop from his lips like badly coordinated dancing notes, but she pays no mind.

She wonders how Salim is doing, since they dropped him, but she doesn’t take a lot of time wondering about it, her eyes on the glowing star in the horizon.

Then a sudden realization, and her eyes widen.

“We need to stop.”

“How come now?”

“We _need to stop_.”

She demands, every word spat like poison.

It’s her body. Her flesh slipping away.

Her threads are coming loose, whatever embroidery magic Mr. Jacquel did on her did not account for a big fall and her torso is becoming bare, under her torn shirt. Her body is coming undone. Like the magic on princess stories she was read as a child and long lost love for. Like everything else she was told and then stopped believing.

 

They find a nearby road motel and just park on the side, close enough for the neons to start bathing them and the smell of cigarettes to contaminate the air. But still far away enough a sudden ice cream van won’t turn any eyes on them.

Sweeney jumps to the drivers’ seat with a jolt, turns off the damaged ringing ice cream melody that haunted their journey thus far, and was made even worse by the accident. A reminder to the bare threads of his conscience.

Laura doesn’t care anymore, doesn’t notice it even. She moves out of her seat, into the back of the van.

Sweeney is staring dumbfounded and slightly afraid. Oddly quiet for him as he either speaks his mouth off or only shuts when he made quiet via violence or order. Laura appreciates the silence.

“The hell you doing.”

“I’m looking for a first aid kit.”, she grunts, moving ice cream making machines and long gone melted food out of the way, dropping it on the concrete floor. She needs a needle and thread quickly.

Anything will do, anything will do. She needs to see Shadow.

She emerges with a small scuffed white box in her hands and her eyebrows fixed in a serious tone. Sweeney doesn’t say anything, he lights a cigarette and stands there, looking at the trees, at the rooms of the motel in the distance above. Anything but Laura. As if what she was going to do was something personal and deeply intimate. But he feels he owes her at least just that, his face still itches from the punch.

He listens to the sounds of her crawling to the roof top of the van, near the giant banner, the metallic _clac_ of the medical box being opened, like a toy chest full of playthings and candy. The sound of her top being ripped open even more, on her quest for cloth and thread.

Laura curses impatiently as she looks for a needle, secures her arm and peeling skin, talks to herself as she rummages through the box again and again. Trying to remember how to sew, how to make herself whole or as close as she can be, again.

 

The sounds of dormant nature surround them, and the sound of buzzing flies surrounding her. There is a tv blaring a game in the distance, probably from one of the rooms but it drowns under the sounds of the crikets and the birds.

Laura swears again. Such a petite girl with so much strength and venom left in her even after life. Sweeney runs his hand through his hair and leaves it on his eyes, closing them. Well fuck, now. In all his time, he has stopped knowing what to do. He is no god so he won’t try to act like one now. He could leave her, steal the van and leave her. And she could kill him time and time again.

He stays put and quiet, like a child being scowled. He remembers the coin, which until recently was just between his thumbs, a tiny piece of ancient gold, his soul more like. The luck of the irish and all that. His soul and the luck of the irish rested again in between Laura’s ribs now, a tiny heart beating away but not keeping her alive, only just barely. A tiny stroke of luck surrounded by decay and holding her to the tiniest thread of hope in closure.

Or something.

“You can look. I don’t care.”

Twilight is turning into dusk, Laura is fidgeting with the thread, holding it between her teeth. Her tone is angry, as always, but not at him, although if she knew what he did, she would blow him to pieces and not even the great hero Cú Chulainn would survive such a hit from a dead girl.

“Need help?”, he offers, squinting his eyes at her dark form under the bright orange sun.

“Maybe. Do you have any loose thread? I think mine is fucked— _shit_!”, it escaped from the needle again, or she prickled something she shouldn’t have and it burst into disgusting post-mortem matter.

Sweeney didn’t look long. He goes for his seat again and gets his shirt. He cuts one of the buttons’ wool threads with his canines. Plenty of thread follows it, secure like veins around a heart.

He holds it in his palm, as big as the coin, same size even.

“Here.” He extends it to her, walking over to get closer. Her shirt is open and her skin over her ribs and right arm is hanging loosely like a bad fitted uniform. Her breasts look soft but unreal, like plastic, like pig skin left too long in the sun. He can’t help but look at the shiny golden reflex inside her ribs. He turns away.

“I don’t care if you see my boobs. Thanks for the wool anyway.”

“Heh, hope that helps. “, Sweeney steps back as she goes back to her work. Resourceful, like Essie once had been.

They were too alike, they were both dead for starters. Sweeney crosses his arms, plays with a coin or two, resting against the door side of the van. What an odd pair.

 

“How are things up there?” he asks tentatively after her curses cease; the coin disappears into thin air between his fingers.

“Good.” That’s all he hears. So he produces another coin, and another, and another one, until he has five of them for each finger, all running along his palm and tilting between his rough fingers and broken nails.

He listens to Laura put the box away, listens to her sigh although she doesn’t need to breathe, her lungs filled with fluids and maggots not air. He feels her bare feet brush his shoulders.

“Thanks.”

He gets on top of the van as well, and joins her near the banner. The sun is disappearing into the tall trees and all they hear is birds. Sparrows, cuckoos, owls, wild pigeons. The whole fucking atlas of American birds of Kentucky.

And Crows. Sweeney feels a pang in is stomach. It almost tastes like guilt.

“So how long until birds start going for me too?” Laura inquires, a sly smile on her face as she waves flies away.

Her tone is lighter now, would even pass as playful. Laura is still fussing with her torn top and clothes from the accident, but has seemed to produce a bright red bomber from somewhere in the back of the van. Bright red, red like blood, the color of life. So unlike her. She is drowning on it too. It is too large for her but large enough to contain her ribcage full of maggots, to cover her crumbling body from Shadow when she meets him.

Because she will. They both know she will.

“Birds don’t care too much for rotten meat. There ain’t no vultures here.”, he shrugs. “Maybe a sparrow or two will pecker at your ribcage, tryin’ to get the maggots out. Or the lil’ berries and tiny leaves that will come to grow once you’re in the soil.”

“Huh. Nature sure is amazing.”

Laura feels like laughing but instead looks to the road, to the enormous bulb of stars that signalizes Shadow has stopped too somewhere. She stares and stares, wondering what he is doing, wondering when she will catch up to him.

Laura stares at Shadow and Mad Sweeney stares at her. The sun is gone now and the sky is turning all shades of pink, bright orange and violets. The skies are full of crows flying to their pine tree tops like black clouds keeping watch.

Laura doesn’t keep much track of time anymore even though time is counted for her. She counts it in her head sometimes. Seconds, minutes, hours. She counts exactly sixteen minutes and fifty four seconds until she turns back from her light in the horizon and back to Sweeney.

 

The first stars start shining. No one comes from the motel to ask about their van, no one cares to.

 

She takes a deep breath and all that comes out is the putrid scent of a tomb being opened after centuries of dust.

“You know what I just remembered? When you could like, get a movie from a store and watch it home. There would be this whole ritual of coming up the driveway in your car, browsing the new section of movies, choosing one and taking your time. Choosing some snacks too. Getting a cigarette outside and then going home. It was all preparation for the movie night. Of course me and Shadow wouldn’t watch them until the end, sometimes we would…”

Get distracted by other things, she mutters, not like it is a secret, but it is now too precious to her. And it is not like Sweeney is the person to care about such things.

Even if he doesn’t listen, she will talk to keep her mind on track, to secure her thoughts are not completely rotten yet, that she still has something left in her.

“Even if I were alive that wouldn’t happen anymore. Stores are all closed, you can get movies from home. But. That was another life though.”

She zips her jacket up and down playing with it. The cool breeze of the night chills their faces and she welcomes it. She puts a strand of her dusty hair behind her ear. Sweeney watches and clears his throat.

“You know the dead. Their fingernails and hair, they don’t stop growing even after the body is gone.” Sweeney says, pulling another cigarette from his shirt pocket, the one without the button and the woolen thread he gave to Laura to attend to her gashes and cuts.

She nods.

“Yeah I saw something about that too. Or read or whatever. Doesn’t matter. I will come back. I have to.”

She steals a cigarette from Sweeney’s pack, and lights her cigarette on his.

Their eyes meet for a little while and Laura almost feels what it was to feel that urging of lust, to be so close to someone that it itched at her in life.

When she was alive it was nearly one of the only things she could feel. Sweeney feels it too. A curiosity burning within him since they met that reminded him of passions long gone. But he too has grown old and worn, and passions were meant to be grandiose and strong. So strong they were enough to make him, a fighter and a trickster, timid, waiting night after night for the little gifts and plates of milk that had once been left for him like love letters. He had followed his own light here, to this land, to be abandoned then, assimilated. Like all things on this dirty land, too many people from all over collapsing on each other constructing futures and forgetting their pasts. But he didn’t regret it. He didn’t regret Essie.

Part of him liked Laura, putrid body and all, that same cunning and blank stare full of tempest. He recognized something in it. He finishes his cigarette, looks into her hazel eyes gone milky again.

“Maybe in another life, dead wife.”

She scoffs.

“I only want Shadow.”

“Well you only want him _now_.”

She punches him and it is hard enough to hurt and break bone. Her look is defiant her eyes bright like a hawk.

“You’re thinking about kissing me, Ginger Minge.”

“I’m thinking about a lotta things, dead wife. Not all of them have to do with ya.”

She lets him go. Laura joins her knees together and brings them under her chin. In many ways it is easier to be dead, limp, gone. But in other many it is more painful too, holding on to a conscience, love; to remember all the things she couldn’t grasp before.

If she had been alive, if she didn’t have Shadow or _Robbie_ \- that one whose name has fallen off her mouth like his limp dick when they died. Back when she had nobody but her cat and the people around her that she kept for sake reasons, because everyone else did. Her family, her friends, her job. Acquaintances. And her cat, waiting for her when she arrived to greet her and she felt nothing as she petted him. Until it died too and left her alone like Shadow. A different type of gone but still away. No one to support her, no one to make the bridge between that empty feeling in her chest and the smallest hint of normalcy.

“I miss the stupidest of things now.”

She begins, like a tale, and Sweeney doesn’t move, just scratches his nose.

“Like sleep. I miss being sleepy, I miss sleeping next to somebody or my cat, I miss being cuddled. How warm your body was sometimes you couldn’t even stand having someone else next to you in the heat of summer but you let them get close anyway. The dead don’t sleep, the dead don’t dream. My mouth feels like it’s full of sand all the time and my eyes are always dry like I haven’t slept in weeks.”

A crow flies by and Laura continues.

“My body feels like it is on standby, but nature won’t let it be on standby, you know? It won’t let it rest or freeze in time, because my soul or what the fuck is making me move this puppet of a corpse—like whatever it is, I guess. Because my soul is keeping it alive and fostering other living things to feed off me.”

She looks away a while, Sweeney knows she is looking for her star.

And her Shadow never looked so bright in the horizon, stark against the dark looming skies and the stars and the neon lights of the motel and road signs. Shadows were never bright, they were the definition of the lack of light but there he was, her Shadow, like a bomb in the distance setting her body or what was left of it, on fire, boiling. Like an enchanted balm that calmed her, like a fairy tale to put her to bed.

And what the fuck right? She is too old to believe in fairytales but she is also not supposed to be alive. She doesn’t need to understand things anymore, they’re not what she thought. She still doesn’t care for gods though, and whatever Sweeney is.

 

Shadow, Shadow, Shadow.

She repeats it to herself like an incantation, setting the spell even further on herself. But she knows it is in vain, and that her time is limited. Her skin is turning yellow-ish and grey, her flesh rots away and her blood is long gone, dried in her veins like clumps of black charcoal. The maggots and vermin make a home out of her, making her hollower than when she ever thought herself to be hollow and rotten in life. Her nerves losing edge one by one like the branches of a fallen sick tree. Gross.

Will her hair start coming out in clumps too? Will her skin start melting around her bones like an old hag? Like a witch? Will her eyeballs become so milky she will stop seeing at all? Will Shadow even recognize her as she is?

She will still see Shadow’s burning light, she is sure. What to do if not to keep going. She closes the cigarette on her hand, it doesn’t even burn out properly, barely scratches her skin with ash and the scent of burnt flesh.

“I even miss my fucking period.”

She expects Sweeney to squirm, disgusted like any human man had been about it before Shadow - who was the one, understanding and smart and hers, once. She could only see it now. But Sweeney shrugs, he has seen plenty of blood and lived plenty of lives, what is that to him.

“At least I would feel some pain, something running through me that wasn’t vermin.” She pouts. “Something to remind me of life and of rebirth and whatever old blood does when it leaves your body.”

She looks worse every day that passes and Sweeney makes sure she knows that. But now he can’t think of anything, he just laughs, pulls another cigarette from his pack and offers it to her.

 

 

The air has cooled down enough and the sky is a dark blue, velvet and moonless.

Both drop to the floor, Sweeney’s boots and Laura’s bare feet crunching the earth and dirt below.

“It’s cool now. Let’s go.”

She demands. And Sweeney obeys.

 

She begins pulling the van away, the neon sign of the motel bathes them in harsh pink light. Everything is blue and pink or maybe her vision is really turning to shit, making her see through selected colors like those 3D glasses from the 80’s everyone wore in her childhood at some time.

The night awaits them and it is a gloomy night, made darker by the deep forest and the darkened sky. Or at least that’s what Mad Sweeney sees.

Sweeney can’t see it like she can. The horizon like reaching for the universe above, a great glow in the sky, pure white gold. Aurora Borealis. The only good thing about being dead.

 

It’s him. Her Shadow.

 

She steps on the accelerator and drives.


End file.
